It's time to put the past to rest... Ben Packard was just a boy when his older brother disappeared. Ben watched him walk out the back door of their grandparents' house and into the cold night. His brother was never seen again. Decades later, Deputy Packard finds himself with too much time on his hands. A shooting has him on leave and under investigation, and all he can do is dwell on the past. For the first time in years, new information about his brother has surfaced that may lead them to the location of a body. The midwinter ground is frozen solid. Worse, Packard is cut off from department resources. As he strikes out to finally uncover the truth behind his brother's disappearance, he stumbles on a separate, suspicious death. A tenuous connection exists between the two cases, and as Packard starts to dig, he meets fierce resistance from friends and foes alike who want him to stand down. The winter is long and cold. By the end of it, Packard will risk everything to catch a killer and reveal the shocking truth about his brother.
Featured Series
2 primary booksBen Packard is a 2-book series with 2 primary works first released in 2022 with contributions by Joshua Moehling. The next book is scheduled for release on 2/4/2025.
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An engaging police procedural with lots of detail about a cold case and the ins and outs of discovering what really happened to Ben's brother on the night of his disappearance. I would have liked a bit more interiority from the main character, more psychological growth as a result of the events he learns about but I enjoyed the narrative and the writing style and found this an engrossing story with a surprising secret that Ben is finally able to uncover after following clue after clue, leading him all over the map.When we learn what really happened on that fateful winter's night, it comes out of left field so not really a “figure it out from the clues” type mystery but one that is satisfying none the less.
I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review